V. I. Lenin

Insertion for N. K. Krupskaya’s Article “On the Question of the Policy of the Ministry of Public Education”

Written:Written in January 1914Published:First published in 1961 in Vol. 24 of the Fifth Russian edition of theCollected Works.

      Printed from the original.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1977,

      Moscow,Volume 41,

      pages323.2-324.1.Translated:Yuri SdobnikovTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaCopyleft:V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marxists.org)
      © 2004

      Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the
      terms of theGNU Free Documentation License.

Thereare hardly any illiterates in the civilised countries. An effort is made
to get the people into the schools. Every thing is done to set up
libraries. Over here, the Ministry of Public, what you might call,
“Education” resorts to the most desperate efforts, to the most
ignominious police measures tohamperthe cause of education and topreventthe people from acquiring knowledge! Over here, the Ministry
hasdestroyedschool libraries!! No civilised country in the world
still has any special rulesagainstlibraries, or such a foul
institution as thecensorship. But over here, apart from the
persecution of the press in general, apart from the wild measuresagainstlibraries in general, rules which are a hundred times more
restrictive are being issuedagainstthe public libraries! This is an outrageous policy ofbenightingthe people, an outrageous policy of the landowners, who
want the country to becomebarbaric. Some rich men, like
Pavlenkov, have donated money for public libraries. Now, the wild
landowners’ government has destroyed the libraries. Isn’t it about time for
those who want tohelpeducation in Russia to understand that the
money should be donated not for the libraries which are under the Ministry
and are due to be destroyed, but for the struggle for political freedom,
without which Russia is suffocating in barbarism.